Colony Collapse Disorder, the term used to describe the precipitous decline in the bee population that has occurred in recent years, threatens the foundations of modern agriculture. Here are a few things you can do for the bees.

For the survival of the entire beekeeping industry and the survival of the honeybee species, it does the world no service to shift the blame or divert attention from the problems we can easily solve. We need to act on what we can, and that must be by banning the pesticides that are killing our bees.

How has the introduction of this species shaped our relationship with bees, our perceptions of the honey bee, and our ecology? What might future bee populations look like, and how might that affect agriculture? But why, really, are we so afraid of them?

From the fuzzy bumblebees that our children chase in the garden to the industrious honeybees that sweeten our herbal tea, bees have woven an essential place in nature's mosaic. But bees are now caught in the toxic web of our climate crisis.

In recent years, bees have been under assault from pesticides, disease, unseasonably cold winters and the research-confounding Colony Collapse Disorder. And fighting the fight that keeps bees in our ecosystem are folks such as Liydia and Vladimir.

Quite simply, humans cannot live without honeybees, yet these remarkably complex creatures can easily exist without our species. Currently, honeybees are dying by the tens of billions around the globe.

The environmental movement progresses in fits and starts. We may win occasional battles, but I sometimes fear we are losing the war and our successes can feel like stopgaps until the next crisis. Are neonics that next crisis?

Why is the decline of pollinators one of our most critical environmental issues? Pollinators provide a crucial ecosystem service valued annually at $125 billion globally ($15-$20 billion in the U.S) in the pollination of our food crops.